Education and Interpretation

What did I learn

The roles of museum educators, visitors, interpretation, and interactives
The importance of visitor studies
Doing special events and programming
Hands-on learning with objects
Doing virtual and education programming
Improving presentation skills and techniques
Pre- and post-learning activities
Youth engagement and how to incorporate youth in museums
Education and interpretation policies
Sustainability and future programming

Having a wide variety of what it means to be an educator in a museum allowed me to gain insight as to how best to teach the public all the history stored in museums and objects. These classes were also interesting to try and apply our learning to our practicums, and think about how all the policies and information we learned could be used at the events we helped out at.

Assignments

Doing a book review on education in museums
Journal discussions
Participating in, and reviewing, a public programme
Create an interactive for our mini-exhibit
Plan and implement a public programme
Designing an educational programming elements for our class exhibit

For my public programme, I helped out at Lang Pioneer Village Museum with their Applefest, which you can read about here and here. There, I had to be an interpreter for visitors and give information about the Keene Hotel when I wasn't giving change and people their orders. I had to be a team leader, and have effective time management, so we could provide the best experience possible to our customers. For my public programme, I helped the Art Gallery of Peterborough with their Family Sunday event for April. I had to, with a team, think of ideas on activities people could do at home from a kit we provided. Additionally, we worked closely with the Education Department to ensure we were all on the same page regarding the event, as well as meeting the Art Gallery's expectations.